
TWO 



DISCOURSES 



PREACHED IN ARLINGTON-STREET CHURCH, 



July 12 and July 19, 1863. 



By EZRA S. GANNETT. 



TWO 



DISCOURSES 



PREACHED m ARLINGTON-STREET CHURCH, 



July 12 and July 19, 1863. 



By EZRA S. (^ANNETT. 




BOSTON : 
CEOSBY AND NICHOLS. 

1863. 






BOSTON : 

PRINTED BY JOHN WILSON AND SON, 
5, Wateu Stueet. 



gepentantc amibst gdibcrana : 
A DISCOURSE 

PREACHED IN ARLINGTON-STREET CHURCH, 
On Sunday, July 12, 1863. 



By EZRA S. GANNETT. 



DISCOURSE. 



" Not knowing that the goodness of god leadeth thee to kepent- 
ANCE." — Romans ii. 4. 



The government of God embraces national as well as per- 
sonal history ; and the same principles of eternal righteous- 
ness are enforced, and similar methods of gracious discipline 
are used, in one relation as in the other. In the form which 
it takes, the rebuke of the apostle is addressed to an in- 
dividual : — " therefore thou art inexcusable, O man ! . . . 
not knowing that the goodness of God leadeth thee to 
repentance." Bat the connection shows that it was directed 
upon a class of men numerous in his day, and perhaps not 
less numerous now. We may spread the reproof over a still 
larger surface, without weakening its force. The people of a 
land should know that the Divine goodness is meant to lead 
them to repentance. 

In the providence of God, we have been delivered from 
a weight of anxiety under which many hearts were sinking. 
Our apprehensions are not wholly dispelled. The end of 
the war may not be as near as some persons hope, nor its 
result as sure as many believe ; but we have obtained not 
only relief from our immediate fears, but real and important 
advantages in the struggle which is imperilling the national 
existence. These advantages have cost us dear. A great 
price has been paid for success in the loss of life which has 
sent mourning into thousands of homes. Our own city 



shares in the bereavement; and with sorrowing hearts are 
the Kfeless forms of the brave and good received from the 
battle-field, to be borne to the grave. The general exulta- 
tion is tempered by sympathy with the mourners, alas ! 
how many, whose loved ones, if not stricken down in the 
murderous fight, are victims of the casualties or exposures of 
military service ! Still Ave rejoice in the change which has 
come over the aspect of the national cause, and see in it a 
Divine providence ; for whether it be disaster or success 
which marks the progress of the war, and however foreign 
from the purpose of the Creator in giving life to men be 
their mutual destruction of life, nothing takes place in 
human affairs, or enters into private experience, independ- 
ently of His providence Avithout whom " not a sparrow 
falleth to the ground." The Chief Magistrate of the nation, 
in timely Avords, has expressed his desire, that "He whose 
will, not ours, should ever be done, be everywhere remem- 
bered and reverenced with profoundest gratitude." Under 
the sanction of the highest official authority, and under the 
more urgent call of propriety and duty, I invite you, my 
friends, to consider the will of God in the events which have 
lifted our hearts into so much of gladness and hope. 

That Avill seems to me very plain ; and although you mav 
not think I put a sufficiently liberal construction on the 
Divine providence, nor I think it needful to bring into 
view at this time its full meaning, you will concur with 
me, I am sui-e, in acknowledging that it contains the instruc- 
tion which I shall draAV from it. Exultation and sympatliy 
are not the only feelings that should be awakened : the 
goodness of God is meant to lead us to repentance. In days 
of painfid depression, the Avisdom Avhich studies a season- 
able moment, as Avell as an honest expression, for needed 
reproof might impose silence, lest the contemplation of our 
errors should create discouragement, or faithfulness in the 
teacher be interpreted as disloyalty in the citizen. With a 
brighter hour, the opportunity returns for an exposure of the 



sins of which God has so mercifully mitigated the chastise- 
ment. In such an hour, the contrast between our unworthi- 
ness and the Divine generosity is suited to humble us. 
Unless we shut our eyes on the plainest lesson of the Divine 
goodness, how can we fail to perceive that it calls us to 
repentance ? I confess, that, on the recent anniversary, — 
which seemed to be doubly consecrated by the recollections 
of the past and by the congratulations we were exchanging 
over the intelligence just received, — my strongest feeling, 
after the lon^ breath of relief had been drawn, was the 
desire, that some one could lift up his voice at the corners of 
the streets, amidst the congregated crowds of the city, and 
through the dwellings of the land, crying, " To your altars 
and your closets, ye American people ! There fall on your 
knees before Almighty God ; and, while you bless him for 
the deliverance he has granted, confess your sins before him, 
and with penitent hearts resolve on better lives. To prayer, 
to humiliation, ye people whom the Lord has blessed ; and 
let praise be the vestibule of repentance ! " 

" What are the sins," some one may ask, " which should 
clothe our souls in sackcloth ? " Of sins which are more 
immediately connected with our civil troubles, — and in 
which, as many believe, those troubles had their origin, — 
let others speak. I find occasion enough for penitential sor- 
row in habits of the people, of long continuance. These 
habits may have prepared the way for civil discord, and for 
the rupture and bloodshed which have followed ; and under 
the law of moral adjustment, which makes an evil inflict its 
own penalty, the war may have exasperated the corrupt ele- 
ments which pervade society : but the general character of the 
people, as seen under the light of the privileges and the 
obligations with which they have been surrounded ever since 
the birth of the American Republic, is the ground of my 
entreaty, that they will now listen to the voice, which, speak- 
ing through the events of the last few days, calls them to 
repentance. 



One characteristic of the American people, "when brought 
under such an examination, is a want of active religious faith. 
They are not a religious people. It may be said that this is 
a rash and unjust statement, disproved by a multitude of 
facts. What facts ? Our open churches and our closed 
shops on Sunday ? Respect for institutions, or compliance 
with custom, does not make a land religious. A Bible in 
every house, and daily meetings for prayer ? If the Bibles 
are read and the meetings attended by but a minority of the 
adult population, they do not prove that the people are reli- 
gious in thought or temper. Numberless sects and warm 
disputes ? They furnish little evidence that men entertain 
the truths of religion as the elements or rules of life. Such 
facts as these belong to the external aspects of society, and 
settle nothing in regard to its real character. There are sin- 
cere Christians, however, — pious, godly persons, — more 
than can be counted. Doubtless ; and they are the salvation of 
the land. Yet they constitute but a part of the whole body 
of inhabitants. They are outnumbered by the irreligious : 
I do not say, by the vicious or the openly wicked, but by 
those who live without a consciousness of religious impulses 
or restraints. The country, we may be told, has now, and 
has always had, among its citizens, a greater proportion of 
devout and conscientious men than any other country on the 
globe, — France, Germany, or England, with all its boastful 
reverence. Perhaps so ; though a doubt may prevail in some 
minds. But the comparison which must determine our moral 
or spiritual position lies not between ourselves and other 
nations, but between our lives and the requisitions of the 
gospel of Christ under which we live. Tried by such a 
standard, who will dare to pronounce the people of the 
United States — in the South or in the North, on either side 
of the AUeghanies or of the Rocky Mountains — a people 
who fear God and keep his commandments ? If religion is a 
dominant influence in any part of the land, it exercises this 
power in New England. Are the greater number of persons 



9 

in the New-England States actuated by religious considera- 
tions in their daily life ? Of course they are not, we may be 
told ; because the millennium is still in the remote distance. 
Yet it is in this same New England that the church-bells 
send out their invitations to a worship, on which not one-half 
of the people attend ; and Bibles, seldom opened, are found 
in the chambers of every hotel ; and sects strive for the cap- 
ture of a proselyte as if he were a prize, to gain which they 
might sacrifice truth itself. No : we do not recognize the 
presence of God as the support of our life, or the will of 
God as its law. Look at the eifect which the war has had in 
calling the religious sentiment into exercise. Has it had any 
such effect ? Do you hear men conversing on the religious 
discipline through which we are passing ? Do our news- 
papers, which at once reflect and form the sensibility of the 
people, speak of the Divine providence, the Divine govern- 
ment, or the Divine intention, in their criticism on the facts 
which they report ? The war has called out an active and 
inexhaustible interest in our fellow-creatures ; and, so far, it 
has been a means of educating our higher nature. We have 
made great progress in humanity within these two years. 
Is there any indication of a similar progress in the cultui-e of 
religious faith ? On the contrary, have we not forgotten 
God? As a people, we have neglected religion. Is not 
that a sin ? Does it not include many sins ? 

Secondly, We are a worldly-minded people. Our hearts 
are set on this world. Some are ambitious for distinction ; 
some are eager for gain ; some devote themselves to pleasure. 
The difference between these classes is formal rather than 
substantial. Great provocation is given to the indulgence of 
a worldly temper, by the facihties which the country affords 
for the acquisition of power, the accumulation of wealth, and 
the enjoyment of life : in no other land have such tempta- 
tions been presented to every member of society. An expla- 
nation, however, is not an excuse. That it is easy to do 
wrong, or hard to raise the character above surrounding influ- 

2 



10 

ences, does not exculpate us for sinking into contentment 
with a low and weak goodness. We have our literary men 
and our scientific men, — more of them every year ; but they 
do not succeed in lifting the people into higher aims or purer 
tastes. We are " of the earth, earthy." The flavor of the 
ground cleaves to our pursuits. We do not covet nor seek 
the skies. The great object in life, with most persons, is 
either a subsistence or a fortune : the former drags the mind 
down to narrow or gross associations, and the latter confines 
it among ignoble hopes and unworthy satisfactions. The 
secular character of our industry is the most obvious feature 
in American civilization. We work for the body, not for 
the soul ; we build for the eye rather than for the imagina- 
tion ; reversing the apostolic rule, that the followers of Christ 
should walk by faith, not by sight. Followers of Christ ! 
Alas ! how few can bear the test of that description ! Fol- 
lowers of the heavenly-minded Jesus, the meek and lowly 
One, the Son of God, who lay in the Father's bosom, and 
drew the inspiration of his life from prayer ! How many 
seek a resemblance to that pattern ? 

Here, again, we may attempt to break the force of the 
reproof with which conscience is armed, by pointing to the 
degradation or inconsistency of the rest of the Avorld. 
A poor device, a dangerous plea. What if all mankind, 
besides ourselves, be enslaved to sense, or lie under the 
darkness of superstition ? In the providence of God, we are 
called to be children of light, and should walk in the light, 
and cause our light to shine before men, that they too, at 
once stung and encouraged by our example, may glorify our 
Father who is in heaven. We are familiar with great prin- 
ciples, political and religious. Our institutions express a 
wisdom which not only extracted from the past its best teach- 
ings, but, by an almost prophetic insight, anticipated the de- 
cisions of the distant future, and wrought them into the fabric 
of our national order. Large, generous, and just ideas in 
regard to the rights and the obligations on which society 



11 

reposes, have been embodied before our eyes ever since we 
were old enough to discern the substance through the form. 
The spiritual truths which quicken and sanctify character have 
been soliciting our attention from the earliest moment of moral 
development. Religion has not been clad in ecclesiastical 
vestments, an object of idle curiosity or timid admiration. 
The free and glorious gospel of Christ has thrown its instruc- 
tion broadcast over the land : oh that we had let it take root, 
and bring forth fruit ! As good as the rest of the world ! 
We ought to have been a better, a purer, a nobler people, 
by a difference that should have struck like the morning sun 
on their twilight experience ; a people with higher aims, 
sweeter tempers, and holier efforts. Could this war ever 
have come upon us, if North and South, the farmer and the 
planter, the capitalist and the operative, the merchant and 
the author, the man whose vote had its weight in determining 
our political history or our social life, and the woman whose 
influence guided that vote, had been true to the meaning 
of our civil charter and our religious faith? Never was a 
people, in the Divine providence, intrusted with such privi- 
leges, encompassed by such opportunities, or entreated by 
such responsibilities, as we ; and mark the result. As a 
people, we are laden with the cares of this life, worldly in 
our tastes, earthly in our views ; a people who subordi- 
nate spiritual progress to material interests, and who let the 
heart be hardened and the conscience blinded by the base 
love of money ; a people who make prosperity their heaven, 
and external success the end of their life. Do we not need 
a John the Baptist to go through the land, crying, " Kepent 
ye ; for the kingdom of Heaven is at hand " ? Unless we hear 
such a command issuing from the providence of God, will 
not his kingdom come once more upon earth, as in the time 
of the self-willed Jews, to repeat their sad fate in our history, 
and " grind us to powder " ? 

Once more : we are, as a people, governed more by pas- 
sion and prejudice than by truth and justice. There is in 



12 

the American character, or rather in human nature, when it 
recovers its fair exercise, an element of good sense, that cor- 
rects the errors into which it may have fallen ; but this sound 
part of our character comes into action only soon enough to 
repair, if it may, the mischief which our folly has wrought. 
The partial and precipitate judgment to which we are prone 
vitiates the working of our political institutions, and exposes 
them to misconception, while it brings on us the censure of 
foreign nations. There seems to be little ground for hope 
that experience will cure us of this fault. Have we not 
already had large experience of its disastrous consequences ? 
Is not the history of two generations full of examples of its 
dangerous influence ? We sufl'er ourselves to be split into 
parties by the least difference of opinion, and then proceed 
to sustain our party with more zeal than we show in behalf 
of the Government or the country. Political action is con- 
tinually running into the channels which blind or deaf preju- 
dice marks out ; and our politicians so generally and so soon 
become either leaders or tools of a party, that the name has 
lost its true signification, and is used to describe, not an 
intelhgent and high-minded guardian of the public interests, 
but a man rendered incapable of exercising a fair judgment 
on questions of the greatest importance by his subserviency 
to the will of a party, — that will as hastily formed as it is 
tyrannically enforced. Immediate and extreme peril would 
doubtless call forth the common sentiment which even our 
fierce political strifes cannot extinguish ; but, when tlie pres- 
sure of alarm is withdrawn, the old tempers revive. Has 
not the country been afflicted, through the whole period of 
the war which has assailed the very life of the Ilepublic, 
with this indulgence of openly expressed or ill-concealed 
hostility to men engaged in the same great work of preserv- 
ing the inheritance of constitutional freedom and republican 
government which our fathers transmitted to us, and a\ hich, 
in spite of our unfaithfulness in its use, had grown to a 
magnitude which astonished all Europe, and made the 



13 

hearts of kings tremble ? Shall we never learn to respect 
the motives of those who differ from us, or to distrust our 
own rash conclusions ? Are candor and moderation vices ? 
Must patriotism arm itself with the vituperation of the 
tongue, that it may rescue the Union from the violence of 
the sword 1 At a time when mutual recognition of honest 
purpose and hearty co-operation are most needed, shall we 
be discussing in angry tones the merits of commanders who 
have been either successful or unfortunate, and augment the 
difficulties of our situation by passionate preferences and ill- 
considered criticisms ? Shall we never be taught to hold our 
judgment in suspense, till we can obtain at least some expla- 
nation of Avhat, in our ignorance, seems to us strange or 
wrong ? Shall we never learn the value of time in preparing 
the way for the grand issues of Providence ? The same 
journal that reports the intemperate declftmation of a meeting 
at one end of the Union, and on one extreme of opinion, 
gives us information of equally foolish proceedings at the 
other end and on the opposite extreme. We might let such 
folly pass as the ebullition of a feeling which will soon be 
ashamed of its own excesses, if it had not acquired the 
rigidity of habit and the force of antagonism to good order, 
and therefore brought itself under the reproof that should be 
laid on all sin. 

Yet once again : are we not open to the charge of selfish- 
ness in our country's extremity ? That it is a selfishness of 
which we are but half conscious, or that it is relieved by a 
compassion unparalleled in its efficiency for those who have 
suffered on their country's behalf, only makes it more proper 
that its true character should be exposed. It is a selfishness 
which accumulates and enjoys the comforts of life, as if there 
was nothing in the history of the times to make us thoughtful 
or sad. How can our hearts be free from sadness, when the 
light of so many homes has been darkened ? How can we 
be careless, when so much uncertainty hangs over each day, 
so nuich doubt over the future ? Is this a time for com- 



14 

puting or for amassing gains, — for amassing them, too, at our 
country's expense ? Is this a time for gayety and splendor, 
for a display of pride or wealth on the foundation of a suc- 
cess due to some arrangement, by which the war, that has 
caused so much suffering, has thrown an opportunity of pecu- 
niary profit into the hands of honest or dishonest men ? 
Should not the period through which we are passing be 
marked by sobriety of thought, speech, and conduct, by 
earnest inquiry into our moral condition, and by repentance 
for our personal negligences and transgressions ? 

I do not conceive that such exercises of mind or heart 
would lessen the good service we may render to our country 
in its hour of trial, or would dishearten any loyal supporter 
of the Government, Discourage loyalty by the confession of 
our sins ! What is the patriotism worth that cannot bear to 
hear or see the truth ? A genuine patriotism invokes God's 
blessing on its efforts ; but the prayer which ignores human 
unworthiness is hypocrisy. A loyal heart is a religious 
heart, — an humble and a contrite heart. It is a wretched 
mistake into which some men fall, who say (I doubt if they 
believe their own assertion) that courage and enterprise are 
chilled by religious sentiment. Have we not had fact to 
disprove a remark at once so false and so mischievous ? 
What braver man, or more successful in the conduct of the 
enterprises which he undertook, than that Avorthy Admiral, 
over whose recent death, in the glow of his piety as well as 
in the midst of his usefulness, not only our sister State of 
Connecticut, but the whole North and West, have poured 
out their sincere mourning ? If we must have war, let us 
have such men to lead our forces by land or sea. If our 
country can be saved only at the cannon's mouth, let those 
who fear God, and believe in his righteous judgment, be 
intrusted with the work. 

God has given us deliverance from the suspense which 
weighed down our hearts. What we may yet be required to 
undergo, he alone knows ; but the present relief and the 



15 

present hope should hft our souls into communion with him. 
"The goodness of God leadeth thee to repentance." Shall it 
have this effect ? Our sins should be brought before our 
contemplation under the light which his goodness casts upon 
them. I have spoken of our ingratitude and insensibility to 
the Divine will, of our want of a high moral pui'pose, of our 
disregard of political justice, and of our indulgence of a 
greedy or ambitious selfishness. These are the titles of large 
classes, rather than separate examples, of sin. Repentance 
becomes us in this hour of thanksgiving. In your homes, 
my hearers, let your prayers be laden with honest confession. 
Let the people humble themselves before the God of their 
fathers, and seek both forgiveness to efface the record of 
their past errors, and strength to be their support through 
the unknown experience which may put the sincerity of their 
faith, as well as the purity of their patriotism, to the test. 
Such humiliation and such prayer will be the best prepara- 
tion for a disappointment of their hopes, or for a bright suc- 
cess and a peaceful prosperity. Let us repeat what Avas said 
at the beginning of our discourse, that eveiy event is included 
within the Divine providence ; and that therefore the issue 
of the present struggle, and all the steps to that issue, and 
all the means by which it may be accelerated or determined, 
are under the control of an almighty and righteous Power. 
Let us remember that the Divine favor is bestowed, not on 
the self-confident, but on the obedient. Let it be a persua- 
sion ever present to our minds, for it is a truth never dis- 
regarded in the economy of the Divine government, whether 
over individuals or over nations, that final success can crown 
only a righteous purpose righteously pursued. Be it borne 
in our thought, be it felt in our hearts, now and always, 
that chastisement is profitable discipline to those who rightly 
receive it, and deliverance a blessing only for those who use 
it according to the Divine intention. May the experience of 
the present concur with the history of the past in preparing 
this whole people for the result which the old prophet has 



16 

described in language suggested by his own, but applicable 
to our times ! — "I will cleanse them from all their iniquity, 
whereby they have sinned against me ; and I will pardon all 
their iniquities, whereby they have sinned and whereby they 
have transgressed against me. And it shall be to me a name 
of joy, — a praise and an honor before all the nations of the 
earth, which shall hear all the good that I do unto them ; 
and they shall fear and tremble for all the goodness and for 
all the prosperity that I procure unto it. In those days shall 
Judah be saved, and Jerusalem shall dwell safely ; and this 
is the name Avherewith she shall be called, The Lord our 
righteousness." 



ilobs : 



A DISCOURSE 



PREACHED IN ARLINGTON-STREET CHURCH, 



Ox Sunday, July 19, 1863. 



By EZRA S. GANNETT. 



^ 



DISCOURSE. 



" Rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the evil. 
Romans xiii. 3. 



It has been said during our present war, that the pertinency 
of the language of the Old Testament to modern times has 
received many new illustrations. Passages, not only in the 
Prophets, but in the Psalms of David, which the milder 
spirit of Christianity was thought to have disapproved, have 
been read, in a tone rather of Hebrew defiance or exultation 
than of Christian charity. It may be doubted whether we 
promote the interests of a civilization in which brotherly love 
is an element by a familiar use of imprecations, or praises, 
that breathe the fierce spirit of an age anterior to the entrance 
of the gospel into the world. There is a passage in the New 
Testament, to which recent occurrences have given an unusual 
value, and the meaning of which, obscure as it has seemed 
to many persons, is made clear by its relation to such occur- 
rences. It is the passage in Paul's Epistle to the Romans, of 
which our text forms a part. In the course of that Letter to 
one of the early churches, the apostle is led, probably by the 
peculiar position in which the Christian believers were phiccd 
towards a Heathen government, and which must have troubled 
many among them, to consider the duty which they owed to 
the Civil Power. In a few brief sentences, each of which 
contains an important truth, he decides the questions that 
might arise out of their political relations. Without citing 



20 

the memorable words with which the Master, in ■whose name 
he taught, disappointed the malice of his enemies, — " Render 
unto Ctesar the things that are Caesar's, and unto God the 
things that are God's," — he must have had them in mind, 
when he adduced the Divine will as a ground of submission 
to human authority. " Let every soul be subject unto the 
higher powers ; for there is no power but of God : the 
j)owers that be are ordained of God." Such is the instruction, 
and such the principles, with which Paul meets the case 
under his notice. The principles belong to all history, and 
the instruction which derives its force from them extends 
over all time. By rising above the immediate circumstances 
by which they were surrounded, the apostle extricated his 
friends from an embarrassment in which the character 
of the government under which they lived might have 
been thought to place those who had forsaken the Pagan 
altars. Pie could not have meant to say, that Heathenism, 
whether in the person of the priest or under the shadow 
of the throne, was a Divine institution ; still less to pro- 
nounce the Emperor Nero — who, though he had not then 
entered on the career of crime which has made his name 
infamous, was known to be a man of profligate life — the 
choice of Heaven for the imperial purple. He simply but 
strongly asserts that civil government is of Divine origin, and 
has for its purpose the suppression of evil and the encour- 
agement of good behavior. In emphatic terms, he esta- 
blishes the right of Government to use the strong arm of 
force in maintaining its authority ; and by the double argu- 
ment, which an appeal to fear on the one hand, and to 
conscience on the other, enables him to frame, urges obedience 
to the power which in the providence of God then held sway. 
Incidental questions and extreme cases he passes by, that he 
may present the fundamental principles on which the order 
of society reposes. 

This is the interpretation that should be put on a passage 
by which some readers have been perplexed, and Avhich, as I 



21 

have said, finds a new illustration of its value in occurrences 
of recent date. The authority of the Government under 
which we live has been met by open and determined resist- 
ance. For three days, in the commercial metropolis of the 
country, with a population of nearly a million, it Avas vir- 
tually overthrown. A mob, which, like all mobs, was 
inflamed by its own success, trampled order under foot, 
violated the rights of property, invaded and destroyed pri- 
vate dwellings, cruelly beat and wilfully murdered men, — 
some as objects of hatred for their discharge of official duty, 
and others on the mere ground of suspicion, — interrupted 
the usual methods of communication, committed the greatest 
excesses, and by their deeds and their threats sent alarm 
through the whole land. The contagion of disorder spread ; 
and, in our own city, similar violence could be suppressed 
only by a resort to the ultimate defence of society against 
the madness of its members. Military force, promptly 
called into exercise, alone saved us from loss and suflfering 
which no one can compute. jNIilitary force, tardily brought 
upon the scene, alone saved New York from pillage, and its 
inhabitants from unknown atrocities. For it is the character- 
istic of a mob, that it grows fiercer with every gratification 
its passions obtain, and with every hour's delay on the part 
of those whose office it is to guard the public peace. The 
evil it is sure to work is a reason for its instant suppression, 
the force of which may be felt by every one. When neither 
life nor property is safe from the hand of violence, it becomes 
the interest of the whole community to arrest the proceed- 
ings of its disorderly members. There is another reason, 
however, of greater weight with those who pay regard to the 
character as well as the consequences of evil actions. A good 
citizen or a thoughtful man will oppose the progress of a 
riot, not from a dread of personal injury alone, but also, and 
still more resolutely, from abhorrehce of the purpose which 
actuates a mob. The immediate object may, and will, vary 
with the cause of the excitement; but the purpose which 



22 

lies behind the immediate end is always the same. It is a 
purpose of hostility to the Government. That we may per- 
ceive the wickedness of such a purpose, we need only consider 
the nature of the institution Avhich is so rashly assailed. 

Government is organized society ; or, to speak with more 
exactness, is the expression and security of organized society. 
Without government, society is dissolved into elements which 
are mutually destructive. In the first instance alarm and 
terror, and at last universal distrust, passion, and ruin, 
follow on an overthrow of government. Social order is 
indispensable to the existence of society. It is the province 
of the government to uphold social order ; and therefore, 
Avith the downfall of government, society is reduced to chaos. 
The form of the government is not involved in this primary 
consideration. Whether autocratic or democratic, the life of 
the government is endangered, and with that the existence 
of society. 

If it be said that tame submission is inconsistent alike with 
the freedom of the individual conscience and with social 
progress, our answer is, that we are vindicating a fundamental 
truth against the purpose of a mob, which acts without con- 
science and without judgment. An individual has the alter- 
native of obedience to the law, or acquiescence in the penalty 
it threatens ; and he must conscientiously determine which 
course he will take. A people under tyrannical rule may 
throw themselves upon the ultimate right of revolution, and 
seek redress for their grievances in the establishment of a 
better form of social order. A mob neither accepts the 
penalty of disobedience, nor aims at a reconstruction of the 
State. Its single purpose in the beginning is resistance ; its 
final work is destruction. 

A mob, therefore, must be put down. The Government 
has but one course which it can pursue, Avithout neglecting 
its proper function and sacrificing its own existence. The 
pco])le should concur in the attempt to suppress the lawless- 
ness of the hour, unless they wish to be swept into a vortex 



23 

of ruin. Upon the occurrence of an outbreak which menaces 
the institutions and the life of society, the first and the 
only thing to be done is to stop it. Its origin, or the provoca- 
tion it may have had, can be considered afterwards. Reme- 
dies for evils out of which it may have arisen can be provided 
afterwards. The fii'st thing to be done is to extinguish the 
fire, which, if not checked, will consume the seciu-ities of 
freedom as well as the defences of authority. The mob 
must be put down at once. Tampering with it is like giving 
a wild beast food enough to whet his appetite ; retreating 
before it is like inviting a pack of wolves to follow you to your 
home. A mob knows no restraint within itself. It is un- 
scrupulous, headlong, desperate. It but half understands 
itself at first ; and, as it proceeds, passion becomes its 
impulse, and plunder its work. London and Paris and 
New York, and every city in ancient or modern times that has 
been cursed with this direst of evils, — worse than a despot's 
cruelty, worse than an invading army, worse than a pesti- 
lence, — gives the same lesson, — the mob must be put down, 
promptly and entirely. 

The means by which alone it can be subdued is a proof of 
its atrocious character. In its earliest stage, it may be subject 
to advice or persuasion. A magistrate, with a riot-act in his 
hand, may disperse the crowd ; or a citizen, whose well- 
known worth commands influence, may be respectfully heard : 
but let the disturbance get headway, and you may as well 
build barriers against the tempest with the paper on which a 
riot-act is printed as attempt to control the stormy multitude 
with good counsel. They will not heed argument or entreaty. 
You may reason with a madman sooner than with a mob. 
But one means of reducing them to submission can be used, 
and that is physical force. The strong arm of the Govern- 
ment must be laid on them heavily. Blows and wounds 
must bring them to their senses. Let the riot go on for a 
little while, and the ordinary means of sustaining its authority 
which the Government has at its disposal will not be sufficient. 



24 

JNIllitary force must be called in, well-directed and determined 
military force. The musket and the sword must be freely 
used. The cavalry's persistent advance and the cannon's 
deadly discharge must clear the street. Men who will not 
flee must fall, and order be restored at the sacrifice of life. 
This is the terrible retribution to which they who are con- 
cerned in these social outrages expose themselves. Blood 
becomes the guaranty of safety. 

If the evil of which we speak be such as has been described, 
both in its purpose and in its consequences, and if it can be 
stayed only by such costly means, may we not proceed a step 
farther, and say that it should be prevented, if possible, by 
the use of every wise precaution, whether immediate or 
remote ? The immediate methods by which disturbances 
of this kind may be prevented lie with the Government ; 
the more distant or indirect, with the people. The Govern- 
ment can, and therefore should, observe two rules by which 
its action may be made conducive to the public peace ; one 
rule prompting, the other restraining, action. It should be 
prepared for an emergency which it may have occasion to 
anticipate. It should not keep itself in ignorance of the 
state of the public feeling, studiously avoiding or discrediting 
information which would place it in acquaintance with the 
phases of opinion or the modes of influence which prevail 
among the people ; and, when in possession of the knowledge 
which may forewarn it of danger, it should be ready to meet 
the first appearance of such danger. The duty of prevention 
may be divided between the general and the local authorities : 
they should concur and co-operate. No jealousy should hin- 
d(!r their common effort to avert disaster from the interests 
which they are alike bound to sustain. If there may be a 
foolish distrust of the good sense and right purpose by which 
the people are usually inspired, there may also be a blind 
confidence equally mischievous. There always exists a 
dangerous class in the community ; and men may always be 
found, ready to use this class for the promotion of their own 



25 

nefarious designs. The public sentiment may be, on the 
whole, sound and loyal, yet be subject to spasms of revolt 
against lawful authority under a misapprehension which art- 
ful and wicked men foster. In view of this liability to 
contagious excitement, while the Government should be 
ready to protect its own authority against surprise, it should, 
by holding its action under restraint, abstain from needless 
provocation of the public sensibility. Measures which it 
deems essential to the general welfare should be adopted and 
prosecuted, however unpopular ; for the prejudice or caprice 
of the multitude is the most unsafe guidance which they to 
whom the public interests are intrusted can consult. But a 
wise administration of public affaii-s will never be disjoined 
from an endeavor to avoid collision with popular sentiment ; 
and therefore it will adjust its measures, as far as is consistent 
with order and security, to the state of the public mind. A 
firm and cautious policy — firm because it is cautious, and 
cautious that it may be firm — will distinguish its history. 

The more remote means of prevention are in the hands 
of the people ; and these are of two kinds. In the first 
place, the people should protect themselves against the plots 
of selfish men by refusing to follow such leaders. Dema- 
gogues are the curse of a free country, not because there 
are more unprincipled men in a republic than under a 
monarchy, but because they have a larger opportunity of 
influence. Such men should always be held under suspicion 
and rebuke. The greater their talent, the more should they 
be distrusted ; the louder their professions of attachment to 
the people or to the institutions of the land, — no matter 
which side they take on any political question, — the less 
should their counsel be heeded. Ambitious, greedy, false- 
hearted, cunning, they instigate others to crimes which they 
dare not themselves commit, and betray the multitude to a 
worse fate than any which the folly of the Government could 
bring on them. An incompetent or bad administration of 
public affairs may produce much suffering ; but the promoters 

4 



26 

of faction and disorder poison the fountains of social life. 
In every political party unworthy men seek distinction, as 
every religious sect includes hypocrites who disgrace religion. 
The more wakeful should all parties be against the seductions, 
and the more resolute in protecting themselves against the 
influence, of men of this class. 

The chief security, however, against a recurrence of such 
scenes as have recently cast a gloom over every honest face, 
is the education of the people, — education which shall at 
once instruct their minds and regulate their passions. In 
other countries, the education of the whole people is either 
imj)ossible, from a want of proper provision ; or compulsory, 
being made a part of the machinery of government. Here 
it is at the same time universal and free. The people, 
imder arrangements which they have themselves authorized, 
and of which they voluntarily bear the expense, both fur- 
nish and receive the instruction needful to make them intel- 
ligent and faithful in the discharge of their political duties. 
This instruction is not addressed to the understanding alone : 
it informs the conscience, enriches the heart, and prepares 
the will for its decisions in active life. To say that a well- 
taught people could never be led into excesses which they 
might afterwards regret, would impute to them a progress in 
mental and moral culture which they cannot be justly ex- 
pected to reach in the present state of society ; and would 
also require the school to exert an influence over the reli- 
gious sentiments, with which, in the variety of religious per- 
suasions that exist among us, it cannot be intrusted. In tlie 
large sense in Avhich we may use the term education, as 
the training of all the faculties and elements which combine 
for the production of character, a thoroughly educated people 
may be pronounced safe against the arts of corrupt politicians 
or the mutiny of their own passions. Such training commits 
the people to a promise which the Government may in antici- 
pation exact from them, that its measures shall be fairly judged 
and its will observed. Public education, like domestic, begins 



27 

with childhood ; but it docs not end even with youth. The 
Library, from which every citizen may supply himself with 
instructive reading, is designed for the education of the 
people, and is instrumental to that end, as truly as the 
schoolroom. A community furnished with the means of 
universal education, in its schoolhouses, its libraries, and its 
churches, with their special arrangements for the young, is 
as effectually guarded against popular commotion as is possi- 
ble under the conditions of earthly existence. The first duty 
of a free people is to see that these advantages are brought 
within the reach of every one, especially of those who stand 
lowest on the social scale ; and then to see that they are 
used. A community has a right to require of its members 
that they do not grow up in ignorance. The coercion which 
makes children intelligent and good is not tyranny, but 
beneficence. In the riots of the last week, alike in New 
York and in this city, we are told that a large part of the 
mob consisted of boys and girls under sixteen years of age. 
Those boys and girls, we may say with the utmost confidence, 
had not been regular attendants at schools of any kind, pri- 
vate or public, secular or religious. Their home was the 
street, their companionship was with the indolent and 
the vile, their training had been amidst domestic disorder 
and social misery. In those same mobs were seen infuriate 
women, whose ignorance was the sad excuse for their shame- 
less conduct. The material of which mobs are composed is 
not taken from our High, our Grammar, or our Primary 
schools ; and, just as soon as these institutions shall gather 
within their walls all the children of the city whose age 
qualifies them to enter, the next generation will enjoy undis- 
turbed social order. The material of which mobs are com- 
posed is not drawn from happy and pure homes ; and just 
so soon as good morals shall become the ornament of life in 
every dwelling, will the public peace be rescued from the 
danger of violation. Which is the better, which the cheaper, 
treatment of social evils, suppression or prevention ? 



28 

The exposition of duty which I have given is impartial in 
its bearings. It holds both the Government and the people 
to a discharge of their proper functions. The function of 
the Government is the protection of the public order. This 
is its special duty. All other offices which it undertakes are 
subsidiary or incidental. Government is not organized to 
secure the public prosperity : an intelligent people will see 
to that themselves. Nor to build up national greatness : 
nations do not exist for the sake of the power they may 
wield. Nor to make itself independent of the popular will : 
that is an abuse of its opportunity. Government exists for 
the sake of that social order, without which there can be 
neither prosperity nor strength. When true to its end, it 
acts in the interest of the people : for it has no interest of its 
own distinct from theirs ; it controls their action only for their 
good. The more generally diffused education becomes, the 
people, learning self-control, need the less to be governed by 
external authority. The function of the people is self-govern- 
ment. They must watch over their own interests ; and the first 
of these interests, as we have seen, is the maintenance of the 
social order. No member of the community has a right to be 
negligent in this matter. He may not leave the whole work 
to the Government. By sound speech at the proper time, 
and by good example always, he must help the Government 
to justify its existence. No faithful citizen will embarrass 
the public authorities by wilful misrepresentation, captious 
remark, or disloyal silence. The Government should hold 
itself amenable to fair criticism, whether from the press or 
the platform ; but from false statement, artful insinuation, 
and ungenerous treatment of every kind, it should be pi"o- 
tected by the sanctity of the place Avhich it fills, if not by 
its own majesty. Under popular forms of Government, the 
administration of ])ublic affairs will be a prize towards ■which 
different parties wiW direct their efforts, and for which they may 
strive in earnest and honorable competition ; but dishonora- 
ble attempts to promote the ends of a party, Avhcther in the 



29 

possession or in the pursuit of power, are a scandal and a sin. 
Government is a Divine institution, and should not be seized 
nor be directed by unholy hands. 

Let Government be held to a strict performance of its 
legitimate service. " Rulers are not a terror to good works, 
but to the evil." The Government must coerce the destroy- 
ers of its own authority. Within the limits of the free- 
dom consistent with its own preservation, it may waive a 
demand for obedience ; but it cannot permit active or passive 
resistance to proceed beyond those limits. The only security 
for the present, the only hope for the future, the only recog- 
nition and discharge of duty by the men whom we have 
elevated to public places, the only loyal conduct or sagacious 
regard to their own interests among the people, are found in 
the care which all shall take of those barriers against social 
disorder which are the pillars of freedom and the safeguards 
of progress. 

My friends, I make no apology, which the Christian 
preacher should never put himself in a position to proffer, 
nor do I ask indulgence, which it would be impertinent to 
crave, for the remarks which have now invited your attention. 
I could not speak on any other topic : I could not refrain 
from speaking on this. We thought we had fallen on evil 
times when the sound of martial music announced the pas- 
sage of troops to distant fields of strife, and the swift-winged 
messenger brought us intelligence of friends or neighbors 
fallen in battle ; but darker is the day in which our streets 
are filled with an angry populace bent on wild mischief, and 
only the cannon and the sword can rescue our dwellings 
from the burglar's entrance or the incendiary's torch. As I 
pass along our chief thoroughfare, and, while congratulating 
myself that in this city the spirit of destruction had but a 
brief season in which to scatter alarm or perpetrate crime, 
see on the board to which all eyes are turned for the latest 
news, " Reign of Terror in New York ! " I ask. Where am 
I ? Is this revolutionary France to which wc have been 



30 

carried back ? Have history, civilization, and religion receded 
more than half a century ? Is this our dear country, the 
land of free institutions, of abundant privileges, of equal 
rights, of unexampled prosperity, of unparalleled hospitality 
to the necessitous from foreign shores, the land in which the 
people rule through the constitutional agencies which they 
have themselves chosen, — is this dear land of ours stained by 
the blood of men whose aim it is to destroy the fabric of 
social order, and plunge us into ruin ; or, worse still, of men 
who have sacrificed their lives in a vain defence of lawful 
authority against popular violence ? Forbid it, God of our 
fathers, God of righteousness and peace, on whose own 
strong yet paternal arm of government the universe rests in 
safety !. No : the efforts of the wicked or the foolish shall 
not be successful. I am told that occasion for anxiety has 
not wholly ceased. Armed men are, on this sacred day, sta- 
tioned in the Hall which cradled our national independence, 
to prevent the subversion of that independence by the red 
hand of license. Be it so, then. Better secui'ity at the 
point of the bayonet, than desolation under the tyranny of 
a mob ; but better yet, when the elements of that mob shall 
have been scattered beyond the contagion of numbers or the 
exasperation of sympathy, and when calmer thought shall 
have led a misguided populace to see their conduct in its true 
light, and to repent of their fearful mistake. 

We need not be alarmed in regard to the issue of this 
struggle between authority and passion. It may cost yet 
more of life. I trust not ; but here and in every city of 
New England and in New York, with all the wretched ma- 
terial which unprincipled men and uninstructcd children 
supply to endanger the public welfare, the disturbers of the 
peace will be overpowered. The immediate ground of ap- 
prehension will cease ; but the lesson which this one week 
has taught us, let it never be forgotten. It is addressed to 
every one's consciousness of duty, to every one's sense of 
personal interest. Let none of us be careless or indifferent 



31 

about the public order. Let no political prejudices or par- 
tialities blind us to the paramount importance of sustaining 
the Government in the exercise of its legitimate functions. 
Out of this great misfortune, as out of all the experience of 
the time, we may extract profitable counsel. We shall not 
have suffered in vain, if we learn to conduct oui-selves in all 
the I'elations of life as good citizens and good men ; mindful 
of the dependence of the public welfare on private character, 
and faithful to the principle which underlies national prospe- 
rity as well as personal success, that, while " the fear of the 
Lord is the beginning of wisdom," it is righteousness alone 
that exalteth a people. May the good providence of our 
God grant, as most surely it will, if we be steadfast in our 
loyalty to truth and right, that our fears, once allayed, never 
be revived ; and that our country, rescued from the schemes 
of rebellion and the violence of passion, be filled with a 
united, tranquil, and happy people ! Then shall the voice of 
our thanksgiving go up in louder strains than ever before, 
and the future history of our land be but the more glorious 
for the calamities that have darkened the period through 
which we are passing. 



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